Launching Your Restaurant.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle in his classic book Politics quoted a proverb – “Well begun is half done.” The launch of operations in the restaurant business epitomises this saying. Reputation matters more than anything else in the restaurant business. Reputation is built on how past performance is perceived by people. The success of your restaurant greatly depends on how the experience of your early customers makes them into your strong supporters and advocates. Today, the power of word of mouth has been multiplied many times through social media networks – be it restaurant review sites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter.

A useful analogy is to look at your restaurant launch as the staging of a theatre performance that is scheduled to run for years. Staging a theatrical performance calls for intensive preparation so that the opening day performance is perfect. Think of the Republic Day Parade held every year since 1950 on 26^th January. Has there ever been a less-than-perfect performance? Your launch has to be well planned and well prepared.

In terms of a broad checklist your launch plans should not be finalised until you have the big three elements of your restaurant in place – great concept, great location and great food. To this add sufficient financial resources to run operations till break-even point is met. Finally, it is recommended that the main team should be in place at least 4 to 6 weeks before the launch date so that the team can be trained in all operations. All menu items should be tested out. Systems and processes for all customer-dealing situations need to be worked out and drilled. Think of this in terms of conducting rehearsals before the opening day.

It would be useful to think of launching your restaurant operations as a project. The final objective of the project is to create stable operations generating enough revenues, which will help you meet the break-even point on schedule.

The first project task would be to start promotions as soon as you can lock onto a final launch date. Training schedules need to culminate into a soft launch that can be viewed like a final dress rehearsal. Invited non-paying guests should be welcomed to your restaurant for a full service meal.

The launch project should look beyond the launch date and design a process of getting the house in order by ironing out the minor issues that will emerge in the early days of operations. Finally, you should target on ways to increase revenues to ensure you meet your financial targets.

After operations and revenue flows stabilise at acceptable levels, you can explore how to maintain the excitement in your restaurant by building novelty, innovation and improvement.

What do you think about the launch of the restaurants? Write in to Quitters and share your views.

Lean In

How to unlock the potential of women entrepreneurs

Author Sheryl Sandberg

Publisher W H Allen

Price: 499

Pages: 232

A recent survey reveals that even though India has a higher percentage of entrepreneurs than most developed economies, the percentage of women entrepreneurs is lower than the global average. Women entrepreneurship thus holds tremendous unlock potential for new enterprises in India. But what is holding women back?

The chief operating officer of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, has followed up her 2010 Ted Talk on “Why we have too few women leaders” with a book that explores this question in greater depth. This book is a must read for both men and women. Some truths are difficult for men to understand as they live in a different world from that inhabited by women. For many women, the extent to which the world of men has been accepted as the norm, places on them success criteria that is not only difficult to achieve, but the very achievement is also a form of discredit. Sheryl talks about how success and likeability go hand in hand for men, but in the case of women more often than not success leads to dislike.

While acknowledging the great progress made for women’s equality, Sheryl goes through statistics and examples to show how much more needs to be done across the globe. Drawing examples from her own life and from the lives of other women, Sheryl shares the challenges that women face in the world of business and simultaneously talks about strategies that can help overcome them.

The title of the book Lean In is a message to women to work against the characteristic response to “hold back” that they have been conditioned by society to have, and to actually lean in and make themselves counted in all situations. While most of the advice is relevant for men and women, the crucial issues of childcare is dealt with forthrightly.  Sheryl urges women to creatively explore possibilities of combining the responsibilities of raising a family with running a challenging business assignment. The book has received a negative response from many people who see Sheryl’s “solutions” as simplistic and placing too much of the onus to change on individual women. But as a book, Lean In has succeeded even if its only achievement is starting a conversation on the issue of how to unlock the true potential of women.

In India we are blessed with relatively inexpensive childcare services, but women still need to make their “Partner and Real Partner.” The saying is true across both sexes – behind every successful person is a supportive partner!

Team Small Medium Entrepreneur

Is to have a purpose behind your business important?

It is a simple question, really. To ask yourself the Why behind your business than the What. When Maggi launched the ‘Atta’ version, it changed its brand slogan to ‘Taste Bhi, Health Bhi’. Although it did not come soon after the ‘maida’ version, which was the original and sold and loved as much as any comfort food around the world, it came after the health conscious took a backseat as started labelling it as fast food. HDFC Std Life’s ‘Jiyo Sar Utha Ke’, ICICI’s ‘Hum Hain Na’ and The Indian Express’s ‘Journalism of Courage’ (among many, many others) too understand the need to be purpose driven and the fact that adding something meaningful to your venture goes a long way in helping an entrepreneur make a business decision.

Many international businesses such as Walmart, BMW cars and even the most popular social networking website, The Facebook started with a purpose. Where they are now is, as they say, stuff the dreams are made of. And money, well, it could just be termed as a ‘by product’ of contributing to something that is bigger than the entrepreneur and his/her people put together. Finding a purpose should not be as superficial as having to decide on what will look good to the world, it is indeed as easy as dreaming a dream and had come quite naturally to people whose organisations today even look for candidates who possess the similar traits at the time of hiring.

Let’s understand it with the help of an example, through which we will explain how can purpose of an organisation work for the greater good of the society. The manner in which employees of Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Hotel endangered their own lives to protect customers is known to all. Eleven employees laid down their lives. A Harvard Business Review article describes how the Taj has built such a team. The Taj Group has a three-proged system of recruiting. They target small cities and towns where they feel the traditional values of respect for elders and consideration for others still persist, because they themselves stand for these values and want their customers to feel the same. They recruit from schools looking not for academic excellence but for students who display respect for elders, cheerfulness and are most in need. Selected individuals are trained for a year and a half, while being paid a stipend and are given free boarding and lodging facilities. Finally, candidates who show high potential are recruited to the Taj.

The Taj Mahal is sure known for the service, it is that which it is respected for. We can always learn from the industry leaders on how they find a purpose to live by. The names Ruchard Branson and Azim Premji are known to one and all, not only for the amazing organisations they have helped built, but also for their, not-for-profit, philanthropy work, which has helped more millions of people than their companies have affected.

What are your thoughts on it? Please feel free to write them in the comments’ section.